On February 28, 1986, Sweden’s Social Democratic Prime Minister, Olof Palme, was shot twice as he left a cinema in Stockholm. Seventeen years later, on September 11, 2003, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anna Lindh, fatally stabbed, succumbed to her injuries.
Two political assassinations that shook the Scandinavian kingdom. And this dizzying question: was a third narrowly avoided this summer?
At the moment, the question has no definitive answer. But it has been posed since the confession of a man, Theodor Engström, 33, treated for serious psychological disorders and an activist within the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR), the main neo-Nazi organization in Sweden. On July 6, in the middle of a political week, in Visby, on the island of Gotland, he was arrested when he had just fatally injured with a knife a 64-year-old woman, national coordinator for psychiatric care in communities. local.
Campaign of rare violence
But since then, the alleged killer, suspected of terrorism, has claimed that he also intended to kill Annie Lööf, the 39-year-old Center Party leader, who was in a restaurant about 50 meters from the square where the attack took place. She was taking part in a seminar on the energy policy of her movement. Moments later, she was to give a press conference, which was eventually canceled.
The macabre intentions of Theodor Engström were revealed by the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, on August 25, just under three weeks before the September 11 legislative elections. Leader of the centrists since 2011, Annie Lööf said “upset”. But “hate must not win”, she simply added, careful not to politicize the matter, while the leaders of all parties gave her their support.
Then the campaign started again, almost as if nothing had happened. Some editorial writers were surprised: has violence against politicians become so commonplace that an assassination plan against a leader would hardly arouse more reactions? And what about the role of the extreme right in spreading hatred and insults against the one who leads the only party of the traditional right to still block the nationalist formation of the Democrats of Sweden (SD)?
In a tweet, the Social Democrat Ann Linde, Minister of Foreign Affairs, tried to start the debate by saying that “the hatred that the SD and other far-right forces direct against Annie Lööf has led to this”.
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